Tdc Aide Hits Beach Site For Convention Center

A convention center near the Fort Lauderdale Strip would create a traffic disaster, Tourist Development Council member David Katz said Thursday.

``That area can`t handle the traffic,`` said Katz, who chairs the council`s task force studying sites for a convention center. ``I can`t picture creating any more traffic on (State Road) A1A.``

Katz made his comments after consultants hired by Fort Lauderdale told the council that a six-acre city-owned parking lot off the East Las Olas Boulevard bridge and Birch Road was a prime location for a convention center.

``It`s (the convention center) the only thing to date we`ve been able to identify which allows us major public intervention in the beach area,`` said Richard Galehouse, an official of Sasaski Associates Inc., a Watertown, Mass. consulting firm hired by the city to develop a long-range plan for the Strip.

``It would have the greatest economic-generating effects,`` Galehouse said. ``It would help support the existing hotels, create the opportunity for one or two new first-class hotels, and the business from the conventioneers would support additional restaurants and shops.``

Katz said the consultants ignored the planned development of hotels west of the Intracoastal Waterway that could support a convention center off the beach.

``They did not address the needs of the county,`` Katz said. ``They addressed the needs of a blighted area, which is what they were hired for.``

The tourist council has yet to decide whether to build a center at all, and made no decision on Thursday. The Broward County Commission would make the final decision on the location and size.

Katz said he did not expect a final decision for a year.

The council`s task force last July rejected locating a convention center near the Fort Lauderdale beach because of traffic and limited room for expansion.

Katz said he still favored a 25-acre parcel south of the Fort Lauderdale- Hollywood International Airport as the most suitable site for a convention center. The parcel was ranked as the top site for a center by the tourist council`s own consultants, Touche Ross and Co. Coincidentally, Katz is building a 349-room hotel near the airport.

The report by Hammer, Siler, George Associates, which is working with Sasaski, said that a 100,000-square-foot center could be built on the East Las Olas parking lot site. A parking garage would be part of the building.

The tourist council has endorsed a 150,000-square-foot facility that would be designed so it could be doubled in size. The council`s consultants said a minimum 24-acre parcel would be needed for such a center.

The East Las Olas site was actually ranked the highest in a list of potential locations compiled last year by Touche Ross, but was disqualified because of its size.

In other business, Sheriff`s Capt. Hank Faucette said a training program was being developed to ensure deputies at the airport being courteous to visitors.

Council members have received complaints from tourists who said they were mistreated by rude deputies. The deputies direct traffic and enforce parking regulations.

``The airport for years has been used as a dumping ground (for deputies). If you messed up, you were put at the airport,`` Faucette said. ``It will not be that way anymore.``